Scott Fay

Associate Professor of MarketingDirector, Integrated Core

Scott Fay is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and is a 2014-2016 Whitman Research Fellow. He also serves as Director of the Integrated Core. Professor Fay received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan in 2001. He previously taught at the University of Florida. His research has been published in such prestigious outlets as Marketing Science (5 times), Management Science (3 times), the American Economic Review and the Journal of Retailing (3 times). Professor Fay was the newsletter editor for INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) for five years (2002-2006). He serves on the editorial board for Marketing Science and the Journal of Interacive Marketing, received Management Science's Distinguished Service Award, is a four-time recipient of the Meritorious Service Award from Management Science, and is a frequent ad hoc reviewer for several other journals, including the Journal of Retailing and the Journal of Marketing Research. In addition to his academic pursuits, Scott thrives on being a loving husband to his wonderful wife, Kara, and a devoted father to his three beautiful daughters, Mika, Brianna, and Bethany.

Professor Fay’s research approach is to develop parsimonious analytical models to gain fundamental insights about important substantive issues faced by firms and consumers. He is particularly interested in examining how firms can harness the power of new technologies. For instance, his paper, "Partial Repeat Bidding in the Name-Your-Own-Price Channel" (Marketing Science, 2004), is one of the first papers to formally model the Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP) pricing format (as exemplified by Priceline.com) from a firm's perspective. Another paper, “Probabilistic Goods: A Creative Way of Selling Products and Services” (with Jinhong Xie, Marketing Science, 2008), considers the impact of product opacity on consumer demand and profitability. This paper finds that introducing opaque (or “probabilistic”) products has the potential to benefit many sellers. Other topics Professor Fay pursues include the personalization process, marketing in social media, shipping fee schedules, and odd-ending pricing.

Research Topics

Price competition

Reverse auctions

E-commerce

Retail strategy

The economics of information and industrial organization

While at Whitman, Professor Fay has taught the Principles of Marketing, both for business majors (MAR 255) and for non-business majors (MAR 301), and the recitation sections for the Integrated Core (SCM 265) which utilizes the Capsim simulation to give students hands-on experience at applying insights that they have obtained in the core disciplines (marketing, supply-chain management, finance, and accounting). Dr. Fay has also taught a seminar for doctoral students (MAR 960). At the University of Florida, Professor Fay taught Introduction to Retail Systems (MAR 3231) and Marketing Management (MAR 4803), which is the Capstone course for marketing majors.

Professor Fay’s research approach is to develop parsimonious analytical models to gain fundamental insights about important substantive issues faced by firms and consumers. He is particularly interested in examining how firms can harness the power of new technologies. For instance, his paper, "Partial Repeat Bidding in the Name-Your-Own-Price Channel" (Marketing Science, 2004), is one of the first papers to formally model the Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP) pricing format (as exemplified by Priceline.com) from a firm's perspective. Another paper, “Probabilistic Goods: A Creative Way of Selling Products and Services” (with Jinhong Xie, Marketing Science, 2008), considers the impact of product opacity on consumer demand and profitability. This paper finds that introducing opaque (or “probabilistic”) products has the potential to benefit many sellers. Other topics Professor Fay pursues include the personalization process, marketing in social media, shipping fee schedules, and odd-ending pricing.